


Sea-Tinted

by rainstormcolors



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh!
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-20
Updated: 2017-11-20
Packaged: 2019-02-04 13:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12772263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rainstormcolors/pseuds/rainstormcolors
Summary: A starkly middle-aged Polarshipping get-together fic.





	Sea-Tinted

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cryptographic_Delurk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptographic_Delurk/gifts).



> For my friend. Thank you for being here.

Her father had brought her a sand dollar, the color and shape of the moon hung in the sky. He’d told her he found it on the ocean shore though really he bought it from a gift shop. She took thread and hung the sand dollar from the ceiling light in her bedroom, where there were stuffed pastel rabbits on the dresser and a china giraffe in the windowsill. And it had been sometime later, after the funeral, that she found herself staring at that floating sand dollar. And she wished she could see the ocean. She wished she could see infinite blue.

The sky was dark blue and the water black, and the salt of the air washed through her hair and skin. The glittering splash of the Milky Way seemed like a kind of cosmic blanket to Mai, as she stared and felt herself breathing, her arms wrapped around her knees as she sat in the sand. The waves, the sound of the world breathing: she couldn’t hear it when she had been on the blimp. She sat here for a long time, until smears of glassy color began bleeding from the world’s edge. The darkness was going to leave. _The darkness was going to leave._

_“Please wake up! Please!”_  
And she wondered if, when she was a little girl, if she had felt something similar to that.  
That dumb Jonouchi, squirming as she rubbed her fist in his hair. Mai could’ve cried herself then.

.

Her hair was thinner now and left uncurled, but her lips were still painted in smooth elegant rose and her nails shined with their French manicure, and she'd worn black stiletto heels. She came because it was the twentieth anniversary of Yugi and Anzu’s marriage, and now she was sipping champagne in the back of the house, bathed half in the golden glow poured from inside and half in the purple hues of night. She’d returned to Domino City two months ago. She’d never been able to stay in one place for more than four years but she was getting too old for that now. There was something inside her that knew this place would be her home for the rest of her life, and she felt the tart sizzle of champagne on her tongue as she looked up at the cool silver moon.  
“Whatcha doing out here?”  
It was Jonouchi. His hair had become thinner too.  
“I just needed a little bit of air,” she said, “Too much talking.”  
“Guess I’ll leave you then.”  
And he began to turn away but she interrupted. “No, you can stay. I want to hear how Katsuya Jonouchi is doing.”  
He moved out from the doorway, leaving it open to the house for a moment but then shutting it when he remembered the two cats. He sat awkwardly beside Mai off the porch, and Mai remembered that he was younger than her.  
“So how are you faring?” Mai asked.  
“Getting by.” He took in a deep breath of the night air. “Restaurant’s doing well.”  
“You know, I went there for lunch last month,” Mai said.  
“Really? You should’ve asked for me! What’d you get?”  
Mai heard the hint of pride in his words. “The miso soup and some tamago sushi,” she said, “Pretty good, though I’ve had better.”  
“Well boo to you,” Jonouchi said teasingly.  
“It’s a nice place. I like it.”  
“You’ll have to come back sometime. And ask for me next time.”  
She watched the bubbles sparkling in her glass. “So how old’s your kid now?”  
“Tomoya? He turned fifteen not too long ago. He’s been kind of moody lately but what can you do?”  
Mai paused, finished her drink, and then she asked, “What’s the story with Naoko?”  
Jonouchi shuffled his feet a moment in the blades of blue grass, and then answered, “We’re still through. That story’s over.”  
“That’s too bad.”  
“It’s not anyone’s fault. Things… just didn’t work out. Tomoya’s still not used to it but he won’t talk to me about it.”  
“I can’t really help you there. It’s a tough age for a kid to start with.”  
“Yeah…” There was a heaviness in Jonouchi’s voice that Mai hadn’t heard in a long time. “I didn’t want it to turn out like this.”  
“I doubt you did.”  
They could hear muffled voices inside, warm and gentle. They could hear Yugi’s thirteen-year-old daughter turn on the living room’s hologram system. The light in the windows turned indigo and the indigo color spilled over the pair’s backs.  
“So you never found someone, huh?” Jonouchi asked.  
“You didn’t either.”  
“Touché.”  
They heard the chiming music of the hologram game floating through the door. There was a flare of white and orange incandesce in the windows and on their backs. They heard Yugi and Yugi’s daughter playing the game together.  
“You know there were guys but it was mostly for fun. A person to talk on the phone with or eat breakfast with. Someone to wake up next to for a while, to catch a movie with. It never destroyed me when things broke apart but I would get a little sad. There was one or two that felt like something more but life has other ideas, you know.”  
Jonouchi rubbed his knuckles across his chin slowly, back and forth. “… I miss waking up next to someone.”  
“Hm.”  
His knuckles stopped. “We were always civil about things, Naoko and me. It wasn’t like my parents but it’s—” He held his breath a moment and he let his hand drop. “At least I can be a better dad than my dad.”  
“I’m sure you are.”  
“Thanks.”  
The two sat in silence for a while, eavesdropping on the family game. They could tell Anzu was watching Yugi and her daughter play.  
Mai stood, smoothed her dress down with one hand, an empty glass held in the other.  
“Hey, Mai. Wanna get a coffee together sometime, maybe?”  
Jonouchi was looking up at her and she could see the soft bags under his eyes.  
“A bit soon after the divorce isn’t it?” she said.  
He was silent, and she chuffed.  
“Just kidding. I’m too tired for head games,” Mai said.  
They went back inside together, and Mai sat beside Anzu---whose hair was long now---and Jonouchi stood beside Honda---who was balding, and all of them watched the father and daughter play together.

.

She bought milk, noodles, a loaf of bread, and three oranges at the grocery store before heading home. The music she listened to in the car was a mix of piano and electronic notes, some younger woman singing about dizzy feelings.

In her apartment, there were small potted cactuses on the windowsill and on the walls hung oil paintings she’d gotten in France. The violet glow of the city fell through the blinds, casting blades of velvet light across the space. She was considering getting an aquarium for goldfish, the black kind with butterfly-shaped tails. She sent an email to her friend in New Zealand. She took a hot bath.

.

Pale grey lanterns hung from the ceiling and there were plastic orchids in square glass vases on the tables. Jonouchi was already there in the café when Mai arrived, waving her over to a table for two. He wore a navy blue polo shirt and a goofy smile.  
“You look good,” Jonouchi said to her in a way that was entirely sincere.  
Mai ordered a chai latte while Jonouchi had basic coffee. On the other side of the expanse of window, people were walking by, sunshine spraying the city streets.  
“Tomoya’s hanging out with his friends today. They’re good kids,” Jonouchi said, and then lingered a few seconds before adding, “I’m trying to give him some space. He has a good head on his shoulders.”  
Mai let her drink cool a few minutes before taking her first sip. She and Jonouchi made small talk, discussing work and the weather and other easy things. Their cups sat empty on the table and they talked.  
_Twenty-eight years… The dock lights and the pepper of stars and all those people in the crowd. He was just another dumb horny teenager to her back then. But on the island, he was so determined, so clueless but so determined…_  
“Heh, so you’re a dad now.”  
Jonouchi looked at her a bit puzzled. “Um, yyyeah.”  
Mai touched a fingertip to the lip of her cup, rocked it gently. “When I was a kid, my father would force me to go with him to museums or the aquarium. I thought most of it was pretty boring to be honest.” Something softened. “I wish I’d been paying attention back then…”  
Jonouchi was quiet for a moment. “Life is kind of a bumpy road, isn’t it?” he said.  
“It is. Whenever I was in Europe, I’d go to some of the museums and honestly Kid Me needed a better attention span. They’re interesting places.” Mai ruffed her hair. “I didn’t ever want kids really, but I do think about the what-if.”  
“It does change everything,” Jonouchi said, “It was surreal… I’d be at work and it would hit me, _I have a wife and a baby to go home to._ It was nice and it was weird, you know?”  
Mai looked at him and she smiled softly.  
Jonouchi continued, “Oh gosh, did I ever tell you about the time four-year-old Tomoya decided he was gonna draw on the side of my car with a rock?” He chuckled. “Little rascal. I think it was supposed to be a cat or dog or something.”  
“Did you take pictures?”  
“I did actually! I’ll have to show you sometime.”  
Peeking through the cityscape, the sky through the window was turning the shade of strawberry lemonade.  
“Hey, can I drive you somewhere?” Mai asked suddenly.  
“You’re being mysterious.”  
“Hm, I just thought it’d be nice to walk along the pier and see the ocean.”

.

The sun was gone by the time they reached the boardwalk and the clouds were like a stained-glass window. The sound of the waves brushed the air. The air seemed purer here, brought to them from over the endless navy water and salt.  
She felt a bit like a teenager herself then, as she dared to softly grip Jonouchi’s hand. And she felt at home.  
And the moon hung in the sky looked like a sand dollar.


End file.
